Syndicate sales "hurt" by GAME instability

Developer Starbreeze has claimed that the recent instability at retailer GAME hurt” the sales of its recent shooter Syndicate.

Syndicate was released in late February and was only temporarily stocked in the UK’s leading games retailers GAME and Gamestation following the collapse of terms with publisher EA.

Although EA is now back on board with GAME, stock of all releases post SSX is only arriving in stores today, meaning Syndicate was missing for a key period after its release.

"There’s so many reasons why a game succeeds or fails from a commercial point-of-view,” Starbreeze CEO Mikael Nermark told Games Industry. We released the game about a month or more ago, and we’re doing our post-mortem right now: what did we do right, what did we do wrong, and of course we will look at the commercial side as well.

"The numbers are not as high as we would like, and I think if you asked anyone they would say the same thing about any game they made.

But [Syndicate] was released in the midst of GAME going under; the retail space is hurting, and I think that hurt us because we were such a retail product."